Dialogue and Literature: Apostrophe, Auditors, and the Collapse of Romantic Discourse

Michael Macovski

Abstract

Extending and modifying the works of Bakhtin, Gadamer, Ong, and Foucault—though drawing primarily on Bakhtin's theory of dialogue—this book constructs a theoretical model of “dialogic romanticism” and applies it to a range of Romantic texts. Literary discourse is seen as a composite of voices—interactive voices which are not only contained within the literary text but extend beyond it, to other works, authors, interpretations, and discourses. The book holds that varieties of dialogic forms and meanings were particularly pronounced during the Romantic epoch, and accordingly traces the manifesta ... More

Extending and modifying the works of Bakhtin, Gadamer, Ong, and Foucault—though drawing primarily on Bakhtin's theory of dialogue—this book constructs a theoretical model of “dialogic romanticism” and applies it to a range of Romantic texts. Literary discourse is seen as a composite of voices—interactive voices which are not only contained within the literary text but extend beyond it, to other works, authors, interpretations, and discourses. The book holds that varieties of dialogic forms and meanings were particularly pronounced during the Romantic epoch, and accordingly traces the manifestations of dialogues within Romantic discourse, beginning with Wordsworth and Coleridge and extending to those nineteenth-century prose works most often treated as “Romantic”: Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, and Heart of Darkness.

End Matter

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